


Mr. Owl Ate My Metal Worm

by Basic_instinct40



Series: If I Live Too Long I'm Afraid I'll Die [4]
Category: Captain America (Movies), Captain America - All Media Types, Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Amputee Bucky Barnes, BDSM, Bottom Bucky Barnes, Bottom Steve Rogers, Bucky Barnes Recovering, Dissociation during sex, Dom Steve Rogers, Face Slapping, Fluff and Angst, Gallows Humor, M/M, Not Captain America: Civil War (Movie) Compliant, Not vivid descriptions of past rape, POV Steve Rogers, Past Rape/Non-con, Porn With Plot, Porn with Feelings, Power Dynamics, Sex Games, Steve Rogers Feels, Thats right they switch, Therapy, Top Bucky Barnes, Top Steve Rogers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-12
Updated: 2020-06-12
Packaged: 2021-03-03 22:21:21
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,471
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24683005
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Basic_instinct40/pseuds/Basic_instinct40
Summary: Bucky fires a smirk Steve’s way that’s all dimples and straight white teeth. “I’m an awfully nice guy, Rogers.” He resumes getting his package out and Steve knows that he is in for it when Bucky stops using his first name. He stands in the middle of the room, dizzy with emotions and wonders how to handle Bucky’s mood.Alt Summary: This is a lot of words about Steve Rogers psyche and a chia pet named Clancy.
Relationships: James "Bucky" Barnes/Steve Rogers
Series: If I Live Too Long I'm Afraid I'll Die [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1731574
Comments: 11
Kudos: 34





	Mr. Owl Ate My Metal Worm

**Author's Note:**

> "And she digs her nails into my face. Is she a prisoner with me? Is she my prisoner? Is she my prison?"
> 
> Italo Calvino, from If on a Winter's Night a Traveler. 
> 
> “I once heard a story about a girl who requested something so vile from her paramour that he told her family and they had her hauled her off to a sanatorium. I don’t know what deviant pleasure she asked for, though I desperately wish I did. What magical thing could you want so badly they take you away from the known world for wanting it?”  
> ― Carmen Maria Machado, Her Body and Other Parties

“Steve, get in me already,” Bucky commands.

Steve delivers a glare that Bucky can’t acknowledge. He has him laid out on his stomach, naked, right where Steve has placed him. He’d told Bucky he isn’t allowed to move, but he never said anything about speaking. A sloppy move on Steve’s part. Bucky squawks as Steve dispatches a bite to the back of his knee, tearing at the taunt flesh with his incisors. He let's go when Bucky starts to whimper. “Did you want to run the show?” Steve asks, but he gets no response.

“Talk shit, get bit.” Steve teases, rising from his kneeling position on the carpet and slaps Bucky’s bare ass. “Now, let’s chat about what I’m going to do to you.”

Today’s games are brought on by Bucky’s paranoia and Steve’s absences. He was gone for seven days, one day longer than he planned to be, called away to duty on a mission to back up Sam, the new Captain America. The bad guys weren’t anything too exceptional, low-level arms dealers who lucked into a stash of plasma-powered body armor. The problems came when the intel ended up being wrong and Sam was out-manned and out-gunned, holed up in a safe house in Bosnia.  
“Why can’t Natasha or Clint go help him,” Bucky questioned. Steve had made the mistake of asking him to help pack, but Bucky spent the time complaining and glowering in their bedroom doorway.

“You know Natasha’s on assignment in deep cover and Clint’s helping to rebuild S.H.I.E.L.D.” Steve would not argue with Bucky about going on a mission again. This was the deal they’d made together, if only to keep some semblance of peace in their relationship. Steve gave up the Captain America mantle, but could be used as back up when needed. Bucky didn’t fight.

“I don’t like this,” Bucky said. He’d been sullen ever since Steve received the orders to head out. “You never do. Now be good,” he’d told Bucky, placing a kiss on his forehead.

What was supposed to be a “get-in-get-out kick-ass, think about taking names mission,” rapidly turned into a fight for your life battle. The intel wasn’t only wrong, it had been planted. Brought in from a double agent, the so-called amateur arms dealers were an actual A.I.M fronted terrorist cell, who hadn’t lucked into the weapons they had created them. The group took the presence of the former and current Captain America as a sign of all-out war, and rallied the remainder of their troops. The battle ended with Steve being shot in the leg, stabbed in the arm, and kicked in his head more times than he thought was polite. Sam had fared worse, his wrist definitely broken. But Steve couldn’t help the sweaty grin he flashed to his friend once the extraction team finally caught up with them.

Sam was lying on a makeshift gurney they’d fashion for him on the helicopter. His glazed, out of focus stare met Steve’s smile. “What is it?” Sam slurred, pain meds flowing through his system.  
Steve shrugged his uninjured arm. “It was fun, is all. We should do this more often.”

Sam closed his eyes, silent long enough that Steve thought he had fallen asleep. “Yeah, I’m going to pretend like you never said that on account of me being high as a kite.” Steve laughed and instructed him to rest. The mission had been a good time, leaving him with a bloody brawl bliss that he’d forgotten to spoil after. He couldn’t anymore, not with Bucky waiting at home for him.

Bucky welcomes him home with a throwing knife to the head, which Steve narrowly avoids. Or as Bucky yells at him, “I missed on purpose, lughead.” Fighting his way out of enemy lines was easier than arguing with a fuming Bucky. He knows all of Steve’s weaknesses, refuses to retreat, and only goes to kill shots. Bucky's tactics were ruthless, leading Steve to fight dirty. Wrapping the other man in a crushing embrace, Steve carries Bucky, who fights at him with all the skill of a deranged alley cat, to his bedroom where he dumps Bucky on the bed. Steve’s risk turns into reward instead of a hidden knife in the gut.

He is currently stepping out of his pants and underwear to climb onto the bed next to Bucky, whose dark wavy hair falls over his face. Steve takes the black hair tie Bucky always wears from around his wrist and ties the other man’s hair into a loose, low bun. “You’re a goddamn mess, Buck,” Steve says. He gives it a couple of tugs, making sure the bun will hold, earning yelps of pain from Bucky. The sound goes straight to Steve’s dick and he pushes away the constant guilt that stirs within him, sleek and powerful. A giddy manifestation that refuses to be denied. Steve feels guilty for what he’s about to do to Bucky, and he feels guilty for how happy it makes him.

  
Rationally, he knows Bucky wants this. Or at least he wants Steve to make the decision for him to want it. The layered nuances of what got either of them off made Steve’s head hurt if he thought about it too much. He tried to break it down into simple bite-size data that he could consume.

Steve wanted to make Bucky feel good and he in return wanted to feel good with Bucky. Bucky wanted Steve to have whatever he wanted, but if that was for Bucky to cum, someone would have to get slapped. Preferably Bucky by Steve. It turned Steve on to give Bucky what he wanted, but sometimes that objective wasn’t always clear. That’s when Steve needed to get creative.

“Flip over lazy bones,” Steve says, grabbing a hold of Bucky’s arm and laying him on his back. He glances down between Bucky’s legs and sees that he isn’t fully hard. This isn’t an uncommon event, it means Steve would need to be creative today. He can tell from Bucky’s flushed cheeks and heavy breathing that he is turned on. Steve learned the hard way that Bucky hated to be checked on during sex.

“If I don’t like what you’re doing, then I’ll say so,” he snapped at Steve one time.

Steve knew this wasn’t completely true. While the goal was to get Bucky off, he didn’t always work that way. The second goal was to put him in a dream-like state that with a quick Google search, Steve learned was called sub-space.

_“Yeah, I don’t need to know the technical terms for all the weird shit you do with me.” Bucky scowled at him when Steve tried to show him the article. “Just do your job.”_

Steve twirls both of Bucky’s nipples underneath the pads of his fingertips, looking directly into Bucky’s eyes. “What did the lawyer say to the other lawyer?” Before Bucky can answer, Steve twists Bucky’s nipples as hard as he can. Well, not as hard as he could, but Steve does it hard enough that Bucky explodes into screams, his dick finally perking up.

“Hush, hush. You’re making a racket.” Steve let's go of Bucky and starts petting the swollen flesh. “Do you know the punchline?”

Bucky sucks his lip and shakes his head no, his bottom lashes heavy with tears. Steve smiles down at him, sympathetic to the waterworks. “We’re both lawyers,” Steve answers for him, roaring with laughter. He doesn’t wait for Bucky to join in.

“That’s a horrible fucking joke,” Bucky croaks out.

Steve sobers up and glares down on him. “Yeah, I know,” he says, before backhanding Bucky in the face. He does it twice more on the same cheek, then moves up the mattress to wrap his thighs around Bucky’s sweaty face. Steve holds the base of his dick and lines it up with Bucky’s lips. “Now, this face of yours, that’s something we can joke about.” Steve trails the tip of his cock, slick with pre-cum, down Bucky’s nose. “Give me a laugh,” he demands before cutting off Bucky’s air.  
Bucky takes him entirely and without protest. He lays there, eyes glossy, not moving because Steve doesn’t want that and he fucks into Bucky’s face. Steve thinks getting a blow job from someone you love is a terrific feeling. It starts in his toes, spreading through his balls and he wants the feeling to never end. Being in complete control of Bucky isn’t like that. It’s a rollercoaster of highs that never peak and lows that threaten to crush Steve. It makes him dizzy with lust and love, and Steve knows that if he stops, if he gives up control, they’ll both die. Steve hates how he craves the compulsive urge to consume and to be consumed by Bucky.

He cums down Bucky’s throat, thinking of biting into the soft flesh of his belly.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Things don’t always work out so well. Steve doesn’t believe Bucky will tell him if he doesn’t like something or if something hurts him. He isn’t sure Bucky knows the difference anymore. Not after what happened to him.

“I think Buddy was raped,” Steve tells his therapist one day. “Buddy,” is the cover name that Steve comes up with for Bucky when he refuses to pick one. “That’s a goddamn dog’s name, Steve,” Bucky glowers when he finds out. “Sure is, Buddy,” Steve laughs, rubbing his knuckles back and forth into Bucky’s hair. He didn’t know how to explain that he had to name him something, on account of devoting most of his sessions to referring to Bucky as his partner or boyfriend. Steve was too old to call someone his boyfriend.

His therapist’s name is Rachel Guerrero, and she’s young, at least by Steve’s standards. Young enough to be his granddaughter, with a mess of curly hair that falls past her shoulders. Steve wouldn’t have kept seeing her if she hadn’t passed Natasha’s background check. Ms.Guerrero thinks his name is Joe Kirby and that he’s an architect. Steve’s been seeing her for the past four months every Thursday at 3pm and he appreciates that she wears a neutral face throughout their sessions.

“Oh,” she says, face unreadable. “Why do you think that?”

Steve scratches his nose and stares down at his lap. “Well, he told me so.”

Ms.Guerrero’s face doesn’t show surprise or disgust like Steve feared. “Okay, I have questions if that’s all right?” Steve nods at her and tells her to go ahead.

“One, did he report it to the authorities?”

  
Steve thinks about that. On one hand, no. Bucky didn’t report his kidnapping and the subsequent years after, but on the other hand, the people who hurt Bucky are dead and Alexander Pierce’s secrets are out in the open. “It’s been reported, yes,” he says carefully.

“Good. Two is your partner in counseling?”

Steve laughs. “No. He is not and he will not.” When he sees the therapist frown, Steve tries to explain. “He has trust issues with doctors.” _Yeah that’s underselling it,_ Steve thinks. “And he doesn’t think anyone else can understand what he went through.” He shrugs at her, making a “what can you do” face.

“Buddy isn’t exactly wrong,” Ms.Guerrero says to Steve’s surprise. “No one can ever truly understand what another human being goes through, especially when it comes to something as horrific as sexual violence.” She smiles patiently at him. “But he should still seek counseling, and while I don’t recommend you shouldering his care on your own, I do think you can create a safe environment for him to heal.”

Steve nods at her. “I’m doing that, I think.” He looks down at his shoes, searching for a way to say what he wants to without revealing too much. “Before all of this, when we were kids, he always knew the perfect thing to say to me whenever some crap happened in my life.” Steve shuffles his feet around on the carpet, remembering Bucky’s hand on his shoulder when his Ma died. “When he tells me about what they did to him I never know what to say. I lock up. I freeze.”

The woman’s voice is gentle, but stern. “There isn’t a rule book for dealing with trauma whether you’re a survivor or a caregiver. There are no magical words or quick fix-its. Taking care of yourself and letting Buddy know that you’re there for him without judgment will create an environment for you both to communicate safely.” She gives Steve the full weight of her stare, her brown eyes warm, but somehow remaining clinical. “But Steve, you need to understand that you can’t will Buddy better. He has to make that journey on his own. All you can do is support Buddy the best you can.”

Steve tells her that he understands and thanks her when the session ends, scheduling an appointment for next week on his way out. He goes over Ms. Guerrero’s advice on the drive home, glad that he’d chosen his words. Glad that he didn’t tell her that the best way to take care of himself was to take care of Bucky. Steve doesn’t think she would approve.  
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~  
Bucky has no problem telling Steve he doesn’t like eggs anymore, or that the shirt Steve is wearing that day is horrendous. He can slam the door in Steve’s face after an argument and seems to have no qualms calling Steve a shithead when he is pissed. But Bucky gets nervous if Steve wants a different meal than him, and doesn’t like it if they eat at different times. He’ll say Steve’s shirt is horrid, but follow it up with, “And I should know, have you seen this ugly mug I call a face?” They hardly fight, but when they do Bucky will torture himself for days afterwards, deep cleaning the house until everything smells like ammonia.

  
Bucky can make his own choices, but even simple everyday tasks cause him anxiety. If Steve doesn’t keep a close watch on him, Bucky will let his anxieties build until he disconnects from their life. He’ll stop sleeping, quit eating, and refer to himself in third person. Steve will wake up in the middle of the night to find Bucky standing in the pitch-black hallway, dressed in multiple layers of clothes and fixated on nothing.

  
“Hey, Buck. This your spot?” Steve leans up against the wall, folding his arms and legs. He keeps his face bored, dispassionate. Nothing to see here, nothing to hurt. It could depend on the length of time Bucky has been standing there if he responds. Sometimes if he is lucky, he can catch Bucky at it early enough, making him nod at Steve’s question, but most of the time he remains mute. Neither version mattered to him when Bucky disconnects, his mind morphing into a blunt weapon that Steve is forced to wield. There was only one way to bring Bucky back to himself.

  
“Look, I’m exhausted, and I don’t have time to stand in the fucking hallway with you acting like a zombie,” Steve snaps. “I won’t be able to get any rest knowing you’re out here, so bed now.” Using pet names and cuddling weren’t allowed.

  
_“I’m not a goddamn child,”_ Bucky growled at him when Steve made the mistake of calling him “Honey,” once during a crying jag. Better to pick up on Bucky’s initial warning signs and handle the situation before it ever became one. Bucky wouldn’t always take care of himself, but he never failed to take care of Steve.

  
He still misses signs.

  
They’re relaxing in the den after dinner, an odd meal of braised meatballs and an entire box of saltine crackers that Bucky whipped up on the fly, when Steve decides he wants to play. Bucky hasn’t gone out yet for his walk and smoke, and they’re both spread out on the couch watching Pete & Pete. Bucky’s feet are in Steve’s lap and he’s wearing one red and one yellow sock. It could be the socks that do it for him, Steve’s had a thing for contrasting colors ever since the serum fixed his eyes. Both men are semi-dressed, clad in their boxer briefs and undershirts. Bucky’s shirt has a cartoon duck on the front of it. Steve mutes the television, ignoring Bucky’s protesting “Hey.”

  
“Hey, yourself, dickhead.” Steve ogles him, noticing for the first time that night that Bucky’s hair is styled into a tight french braid. There’s a dark blue ribbon braided throughout the strands and Steve’s cock hardens at the idea of fucking it up. “Your hair looks nice,” Steve says, cool as a cucumber.

  
Bucky is unimpressed. “What a complement, Rogers. You’re knocking them dead with that one.” He reaches for the remote, but Steve swats his arm away.

  
“Shut the fuck up,” Steve says, but the heat isn’t there. He rubs his dick into the heels of Bucky’s feet. “You wanna waste some time with me?”

Bucky grants him a look of pure disgust as he watches Steve dry hump his feet. “Wasn’t I already doing that?” he asks.

“You were wasting your useless time,” Steve clarifies for Bucky, scooping him up by the waist and hauling him down onto his lap. “Now, I’m going to waste my valuable time using one of your holes.” He whacks Bucky’s nose like he’s an untrained circus animal, then whacks him again because it’s Steve’s job to train him. Bucky squirms his semi-hard cock along Steve’s abs, the tail end of his braid swinging against his elegant neck. Steve sucks a kiss under Bucky’s collarbone, wishing he could leave a bruise that would last longer than a couple of hours.

“Poor brainless Buck,” Steve chides. “Bad, Bucky,”

“No,” Bucky moans. He wiggles, slumping over.

Steve hides his smile before making Bucky sit up straight, capturing Bucky’s chin in his fist. “You are and you know it.” He drills his fingers deeper into the meat of the other man’s jaw. “Bad Bucky,” He says again. Bucky rolls his hips across Steve’s groin. He feels limp in his arms, threatening to fall off the couch, but Steve won’t let that happen. “Okay. Fine, then. Be a good use of my time,” He instructs Bucky.

Steve lays him face up on the couch, yanking his braid and calling Bucky a shitty waste of time, a lazy use of flesh that only he can find a compulsion to maintain. He pries off Bucky’s underwear, then pulls his own down, right underneath his balls. They keep lube stashed all around the house and Steve searches the couch cushions until he finds a lone bottle. Bucky is hard with little production and it makes Steve proud to know he can prompt this reaction from him. He squeezes a considerable amount of lube in his hand and begins to jack Bucky off.  
At the touch of Steve’s hand, Bucky cries out and fucks into his fist with shallow thrust. “Suitable job, fuckface,” Steve congratulates him before taking his hand away. “But this isn’t about you and your slutty antics.” He thumps Bucky’s dick, making sure his nails hit the tip. “You’re supposed to be showing me what a good waste of time you are, remember? ” Steve grabs Bucky’s hair with his slicked up hand, tucking his fingers into the folds of the braids.

“I’m trying,” Bucky wails. He humps the air in an attempt to get at Steve, his cries turning into laughter. “I’m a trashy magazine, or Facebook.” Bucky’s laugh turns into a shriek as Steve bites his chin, not setting him loose until Steve tastes copper. It’s rough treatment, but they’ve done rougher. Bucky breathes through his nose and makes a sound that reminds Steve of an angle grinder. He takes that as encouragement to start opening Bucky up.

Steve dispenses more lube onto his fingers and starts a vicious but slow assault on Bucky hole. Two, then three fingers, led on by choir’s of Bucky’s pleas for more. Steve provides because he wants Bucky to have everything. When he’s four knuckles deep, Steve increases his pace ignoring his own hard on in favor of Bucky’s. “Look at what you get when you act right,” Steve says. “Look at what you can take.” Bucky’s eyes are shut and Steve knows he has to reel him in. “Nope, you don’t get to leave.” Wiggling his fingers, Steve knocks against Bucky’s prostate similar to a door-to-door salesman. Bucky’s eyes fly to his and there’s an alertness to them that wasn’t before. Steve smiles down, making sure to tuck away all the love he holds for the other man. “That’s right. Let me in."

Pulling his fingers out of him to lift Bucky’s legs onto his shoulders, he hears Bucky say from below him, “Knock, knock.” Steve doesn’t answer right away, focusing on making room for himself inside of Bucky’s body, bending him nearly in half. He steadies himself to the moment, eyelids closed while the guilt and excitement sweep through him. Steve presses Bucky’s knees to his ears, burrowing in, wanting access to more.

“Really, Bucky? A knock, knock joke?” Steve opens his eyes. His hands and feet turn to ice when he sees Bucky’s blank face, his grey eyes sealed off. Bucky isn’t there. No one is home.

“Shit, fuck, shit.” Steve removes himself from Bucky as if he was touching a live wire, reaching to cup the side of his face. “Bucky, are you okay?” He asks. Tears fill the back of his eyes and he gently lowers the other man’s legs. “Buck?” Steve calls, but it’s useless, and he knows it.

When Bucky went away like this, there wasn’t anything Steve could do to bring him back. Not immediately. They’d tried to figure out what brought these episodes on, sex not being the only trigger, but so far they didn’t have much information. Bucky would be present one minute and then gone the next, the passage of time meaningless to him.

Steve straightens his clothes and dresses Bucky, taking care to be tender and talking to him the entire time. He kisses Bucky’s forehead and carries him bridal style to their bedroom, laying him on the bed and returning with a hot, damp washcloth. Steve uses it to wash Bucky’s face, neck, and hands, whispering the words he is never allowed to say when Bucky is conscious. Steve lays next to him, his body achy with uselessness. He presses his fingers into his sternum, a deep feeling of being cracked open and left out raw settling over Steve.

  
“I’ll be here when you get back,” Steve whispers. He doesn’t hold on to Bucky because Steve knows he doesn’t like to be held down when he gets like this. Instead, he drags Bucky on top of him, letting him rest against his chest.  
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Steve is painting in the office when Bucky gets home from an impromptu shopping trip. He’s following along with Bob Ross painting specials on Netflix, using a set of acrylic oil paints that he’d recently purchased when Bucky slams the front door, tromping up the stairs, being uncharacteristically boisterous. Bucky’s solo shopping trips could range from bizarre to panic inducing, and Steve begins cleaning up his project knowing that all his attention would need to be on listening to Bucky explain his latest purchase.

“Well, afternoon, happy painter,” Bucky trills, swinging into Steve’s view. He’s grinning, but Steve is happy to see it isn’t one of his murder grins.

Steve shoots him a closed-mouth smile, his lips opening up salaciously when he takes in Bucky’s outfit. He is clad in skin tight red jeans and a black leather jacket that Steve could never dream of pulling off. “Hey, cool rider,” Steve replies pointing with his paintbrushes at the cloth sack the other man carries. “Whatcha got there?”

Bucky saunters over to meet him in the middle of the room, stepping on the drop cloth Steve has laid down, with red polka dot socks covering his feet. “A fresh addition to our plant family. A youngster.” He sits the sack on the floor, maneuvering his arm to get the box out and show Steve. The box reads Chia Pet on the side and what promises to be a plant covered turtle hiding inside of it.

“Lookit,” Bucky says, lifting the present eye level for Steve to inspect.

“I love it,” Steve automatically replies, not knowing what it is.

Bucky snatches the box away from him. “You don’t even know what it is. How could you love it?” He grumbles

“Uhhh,” Steve’s voice comes out flat like forgotten soda and he starts cleaning again. The air in the room drapes around him, taking on weight, slicking his lower back with sweat. “Don’t worry, Steve.” Bucky says brightly. “I’ll read you the instructions. The guy at the store said these things are hard to kill.”

He leaves Steve’s side to walk over to the largest window in the room. On its ledge sits several potted plants, predominantly cacti and succulents. Bucky whips out one of his knives, flicking it open with a refined swish of his wrist. “Not even you can fuck this one up.”

Steve takes his time putting away the rest of his art supplies, trying and failing to untangle the mess that is Bucky’s words versus his inflection. The low afternoon sun spills from the curtains and onto Bucky’s hair, bringing out the natural caramel highlights that swept from his scalp. Steve can’t help but admire him as Bucky cuts into the box. He treads lightly when he speaks next. “That’s an awfully nice thing of you to say, Buck.”

Bucky fires a smirk Steve’s way that’s all dimples and straight white teeth. “I’m an awfully nice guy, Rogers.” He resumes getting his package out and Steve knows that he is in for it when Bucky stops using his first name. He stands in the middle of the room, dizzy with emotions and wonders how to handle Bucky’s mood.

“You think you could turn that shit off,” Bucky barks out with his back turned. “Robert Ross gives me the heebie jeebies.” He has a tiny ceramic turtle in his hand and he fake shudders when he shows it to Steve. “Look at this guy,” he coos. Steve thinks the plant is odd and ugly, but he suspects that Bucky knows he thinks this. He picks up the remote for the television, not yet turning it off.

Steve doesn’t comment on the turtle or the emotional game of ping pong that Bucky is playing with him. “Why don’t you like Bob Ross?” he asks instead, feeling petty.

“What?” Bucky isn’t paying attention. He’s caught up in an elaborate seating arrangement with the cacti, muttering under his breath while he moves them.

Steve unnecessarily clears his throat. “Why does Bob Ross give you the so-called heebie jeebies?”

Bucky must have carved out an adequate spot for his pet because he quits moving and glares at Steve. “Because he does. Turn it off and come help me. I think this guy does magic.”

Steve holds his ground, refusing to be swayed by potentially magical plant amphibians. “No, I’m watching this. You barged your ass in here.” Bucky lifts one brow in the direction of his hairline, a note of caution flashes across his face, but Steve barrels on, Bucky’s warning signs be damned. “If you’re going to interrupt what I’m doing, you can at least give me a proper response when I fucking speak to you. So. Answer me,” He orders. The words taste like chemicals in the back of his throat, a flavor of regret that he will taste for the remainder of the night. “Some people find Bob Ross calming,” Steve adds lamely.

Bucky’s face is momentarily grim before converting itself to a blank slate, no previous humor or frustration to be found. “Alright, sorry,” His voice comes out mechanical and Bucky stands at attention with his arm pulled behind his back. “I find his persistent need to calm his viewers emotions off putting and the hypnotic quality of his tutorials is eerie.” The report is given without emotion, and Bucky doesn’t move after giving his statement, waiting for further instructions.

Steve’s mouth goes dry, and he licks his lips seeking moisture. “Oh, um, Buck, you don’t have to apologize. I umm, shit.” He stutters and stops, his chest hot with realization. Quickly he turns the tv off and tosses the remote with too much force. Neither one of them mentions anything when it shatters along the carpet. “You don’t have to apologize,” he repeats. Bucky stays quiet, but he shrugs, his stance loosening. The Asset persona fading, but remaining in the room. Ready to comply.

“Will you show me how to take care of the plant?” Steve request. Hopeful.

Bucky waves him over, pulling out the instructions. “I’ve already named him Clancy and no. I won’t take criticism.”

****************************************************************************

He tells his therapist, “Our sex life is unorthodox.”

Ms.Guerrero is wearing dangly cherry earrings today and her hair is up. She doesn’t react when Steve says this to her. “Why do you say that?”

Steve is a bundle of nerves, not sure why he has brought it up. He doesn’t want to talk about it, but he feels like he should. “He will ask me to do things to him. Violent things.” As soon as the words leave Steve’s mouth, he knows it’s a lie. A cop out to make himself feel better. Yes, Bucky will ask, but he does it willingly, if not joyfully.

The therapist wrinkles her forehead. “Are you not comfortable with that? Does he hit you?”

“No, I want to do it,” Steve almost shouts, rushing to defend Bucky. He notices that he is bouncing one of his legs wildly and settles it. “He doesn’t hit me.” They may wrestle, or roughhouse, but it’s Steve alone who deals out the heavy duty beatdowns.

“Okay,” Ms. Guerrero studies his face before moving on. “Have you done any research into BDSM practices and negotiations?”

  
Steve nods. He’s embarrassed by his answer, but glad to get a question right. “Light research, but what’s going on out there and what we are doing doesn’t seem the same.”

  
The therapist spreads her hands out, flexing her fingers above her knees. “I think everyone feels that way. Sex is complex, but it doesn’t need to be frightening.” She sits with her pen and notebook face down on the coffee table, resting her elbows on her thighs. “You and your partner have to communicate. That’s the most important thing.”

  
“I know that,” Steve says. He and Bucky communicate, but it’s not the way anyone else would understand. They have their own symbiotic communication that is forever influx. He can’t define it for himself, let alone for an outsider.

  
“And I want you to know,” Ms. Guerrero adds, pulling Steve away from his thoughts. “That what you do in the privacy of your bedroom, says nothing reliable about who you are as a person. Don’t allow your sexual fantasies and urges to dictate who you are as a person.” She smiles at Steve as if the matter was put to bed and he wishes it was that simple.

  
Steve doesn’t think his therapist is stupid, and it’s not as if he wears a full disguise to her office, other than a pair of non-prescription Groucho Marx-style glasses. She does give him a wondering glance at times during their sessions, a look that says, _“Who the fuck are you kidding, pal?”_ But surely Ms. Guerrero doesn’t know Joe Kirby is Steve Rogers?

  
He flexes his fist, not meeting her careful expression. “Sometimes I feel-,” Steve stops, feeling embarrassed about being a middle aged man who can’t talk about sex, who can’t figure out his sex life for himself. Steve is embarrassed and angry that he has to go and make an appointment to see a professional in a little room, where he sits in a green armchair to talk about his life. The entire thing made Steve feel ridiculous. “I feel out of control when we are having sex. He will ask me to hurt him and I’ll do it. I want to do it and it worries me that one day I’ll hurt him.” Steve flicks his eyes up to track his therapist's expression as he talks. “I worry that I’ve already hurt him.”

  
“Neither one of you have taken measures to prevent that from happening? You haven’t made a safe word or designed a checking in system?” Ms. Guerrero’s face is neutral, but Steve can hear traces of disappointment in her voice.

  
Steve shakes his No. “Buddy doesn’t want that. He says we don’t need them.”

  
“I think it goes without saying that both of you have a hard time recognizing when enough is enough.” She tilts her head and gifts Steve a kind smile. “Perhaps it’s time for you to initiate that conversation.”

  
Steve stares down at the carpet. It’s a lovely shade of taupe that he is growing to hate. “Perhaps you’re right.”  
***************************************************************************  
“What was it like to be stuck in an iceberg for seventy years?”

  
“Cold,” Steve blandly retorts.

  
He wished he had a more exciting response to regale the mass of idiots who badgered Steve with this rude question a decade plus out of the Arctic. Reporters and random gawkers on the subway were constantly disappointed, but the entire event felt like a heavy nap that didn’t agree with him. He doesn’t tell anyone about the inconsistent nightmares where Steve hovers between the waking world and his subconscious. It traps him in his own body, bile creeping up his esophagus, as his room fills with the embodiment of his dread. It wants to smother him, wants to put him back in the ice, and the worst part of it all is that Steve wants to let it. He is horribly conscious, but too weak to fight back.  
A hand stronger than his own seizes his airway, finally killing him. All his fears surround him, and Steve is never strong enough to fight them all. It is the closest he ever comes to remembering.

  
“Wake up, shithead!” Bucky yells in his ear.

  
Jolting awake, Steve regains control over his limbs. Clenching and unclenching his fist and stretching his legs. Bucky’s worried face bends over him, his hesitant hand near, but not touching, “Hey, bud. You with me?”

  
Steve nods with effort, the nightmare realm rules of physics still trying to apply. He makes himself speak, so he doesn’t worry Bucky further. “I’m with you.”

  
Bucky raises his brows in a question towards Steve, inching his fingers closer, asking for permission. Steve meets him halfway to entwine their hot and clammy fingers. “You haven’t had one of those in a while,” Bucky says. “Not since I started sleeping in your room.” Steve says nothing, tugging Bucky into the fold of his heavy arms. He wipes his face in Bucky’s hair, absorbing his scent. “You want to talk about it?” Bucky asks. He says it gingerly and Steve wonders if he wants him to say no.

  
“There’s nothing to talk about,” he replies. It’s not a lie.

  
They drift back to sleep, and if Steve dreams he doesn’t remember. When they wake, it’s late morning and Bucky complains that he is starving. Steve isn’t hungry, but he knows if he doesn’t eat then Bucky won’t. They dress in silence, although Steve can feel Bucky staring at him while they brush their teeth. He tries to be playful, hoping to trick himself into a better mood, but his jokes fall flat when he forgets the punchlines. Bucky thankfully picks up the conversational slack and reads him a story he wrote while Steve makes pancakes. The story is a space odyssey about a Doctor falling in love with an alien prince who comes from a species of tentacle-like creatures. Steve is almost sure that Bucky has cast himself as the eight tentacle prince and Steve as the “hunky” Dr. Evans, but he doesn’t think he’s supposed to reveal he knows this. He asks for Steve’s feedback while they eat.

Steve is delicate when he gives his review. “That’s a lot of words about tentacle sex.” He slides Bucky a plate of pancakes and bacon. “You seem well versed in the subject.”

Bucky hums in agreement, his mouth full of food. “Lots of stuff on the internet,” he informs Steve, spearing a hunk of pancake with his fork. “It’ll blow your mind.” Steve mutters that he has Bucky for that, earning himself a sharp kick in the shins.

They wash the dishes after eating seconds, and Bucky scrambles off to his bedroom, a place Steve is not authorized to step foot in unless he has written permission from the occupant. His mind is holding onto the ominous fragments of his nightmare and Steve heads to the office to finish a painting, hoping the task will offer him clarity. He ignores the electrical sawing noises coming from Bucky’s room, hoping that the other man doesn’t start a fire again and focuses on the canvas in front of him.  
It started out as a simple watercolor landscape that has grown into a monster of memory for Steve. Bucky said it was identical to a makeshift base that he and the Howling Commandos were forced to bunker down in when they were shooting their way through France fifty years ago.

“No,” Steve had told him, paint brush waving through the air. “I pulled this from nowhere. This place doesn’t exist.”

Bucky didn’t even offer the painting a second scan. He was holding a grey mug full of grape juice and extended the drink towards Steve to take. “You can’t pull a place from nowhere. That’s not how things work. You’re painting a memory.” Steve stared at Bucky’s face, his high cheekbones and full lips. Still so handsome, even after what they did to him. He knocked the mug into Steve’s chest, the juice sloshing over the rim.

“Here, Steve,” Bucky told him. “You need to drink something.”

  
Now that Steve had taken some time away from the painting, he could see that Bucky wasn’t wrong. The scenery was familiar to him, and the smokey blue-green imagery of the canvas was more mnemonic than Steve would care to admit. He picked up his paint brush, hovering it above the picture, but not sure how to move on. Steve was ashamed to say that he hadn’t thought of the rest of the Howling Commandos, his men, since he learned Bucky was alive. All members of his old team had living family members, he and Bucky being the only ones to not have children. When Steve was discovered alive, their families had reached out to him. But then New York happened, then Bucky, then the dismantling of S.H.I.E.L.D., and the subsequent resurgence of Hydra. The past year Steve spent with Bucky, rebuilding their house, and fucking each other’s brains out, was his first actual break since he was in his early twenties.

Steve couldn’t help but think he didn’t deserve it. He drove himself head first into an iceberg, believing with his entire heart that he was saving the world, that he and Bucky's deaths meant something. But S.H.I.E.L.D dragged Steve out of his icy grave to discover that the bad guys were experts at hiding in plain sight and the good guys weren’t above comprising when it suited them. Dying for a cause didn’t mean much when they could keep bringing you back to fight the same never ending battles.

  
“You’d think the painting will come to life if you stare at it long enough?” Bucky’s voice breaks through the tsunami of thoughts that threaten to carry Steve away. Bucky leans against the doorway, eyeballing Steve, hand casually resting in his pant’s pocket.

Steve sits his paintbrush down, stretching out the cramp that courses throughout his fist. “You never know. Stranger things have happened to us.” He drags his nails along his scalp, wincing when he feels the layer of oil in his hair. The attempt at normalcy couldn’t shake Steve from the vestiges of his nightmare, and the painting was reminding him of debts that he yet to repay. Steve couldn’t understand living for as long as he had and yet still being covered in the filth of underachievement.

He worries at his bottom lip, staring at the painting without seeing it when he feels the cool brush of Bucky’s fingertips on his shoulder. Steve grabs at the other man, circling his thumb and index finger around his wrist.

“Jesus, Buck,” Steve takes a stab at making his voice rough, but it comes out meek even to his own ears. “Going to put a goddamn collar and bell on you if you keep sneaking up on me.” Bucky has changed into a heather grey t-shirt that makes his eyes more silver than blue and Steve runs one of his palms down the length of Bucky’s chest because he can.

Bucky nuzzles closer to Steve, nose to throat, initiating a rare show of affection between the two. “A collar, you say?” His breath is warmth and the words ghost down Steve’s collarbone, starting a fire in his chest. “Promises, promises,” Bucky continues, voice mild while the fire spreads in Steve. His body receives the message and locks itself into place despite the lack of words from Bucky. Steve’s heart, forever unreliable and most mistrustful, works itself into a manic rhythm.

Bucky doesn’t lift his head from Steve’s shoulder when he removes the hold from around his wrist. He flattens his face within the cusp of Steve’s neck, his lashes testing out microscopic butterfly kisses that causes the back of Steve’s mouth to water. The low mid-afternoon sun tumbles through the window blinds and Steve traces the shadows of the plants that splashed over the office walls. His hands hang loosely by his side, a play at being a possum that Steve has failed at before. There’s a stinging movement stalking up his spine, and it takes Steve longer than he would like to realize that the sensation is Bucky’s nails.

His eyes land on the chia pet, the turtle named Clancy, and Steve is taken aback by the sadness he feels for the grotesque potted plant. Closing his eyes to the room, he hears Bucky release a tiny sigh that goes no further than Steve’s body. “Put your hands on me, Steve,” Bucky requests and he does so immediately, eyes clenched tight the way they would do sometimes while watching a horror film.

Bucky sighs again, louder this time, the noise filling the room. Steve knows he is missing information in that sigh, missing smoke signals to the blazing fire that Bucky has set to him, but he can’t keep up in this way. He has never been able to excel in this particular arena of warfare. For all of Steve’s keen observations skills on and off the battlefield, the inner workings of the people closest to him remain a mystery. Fault could be laid at his feet, Steve wasn’t completely unaware of his failings. He would rather run into a war zone, serum or no serum, than open up about his feelings. That didn’t mean he wanted his loved ones to suffer in silence.

He snaps his eyes open when he feels Bucky stand up straight, hyper-vigilant of the other man, searching for what is there and what isn’t. Bucky’s mouth forms a caring smile, it makes Steve weak all over, and he leans into Bucky’s hand unintentionally when he strokes his hair.

“Oh, sweetheart, you’re tired,” Bucky says, his voice velvet to Steve’s ear. The bottom of his belly engulfs in flames and his traitorous heart flings itself against its cage, an offering to Bucky. “I can’t have you wearing yourself out,” he says to Steve. “I need you, remember?”

  
Steve nods in response, afraid to speak. Too afraid of what will come of out if he starts, and he doesn’t want Bucky to stop touching him. Bucky rewards him for making the right decision by kissing the side of mouth, a quick press of their lips before he pulls away. He takes two steps back from Steve, but keeps his hand on his shoulder. Bucky seems to be assessing him, and Steve is not included in the results.

  
Their eyes meet and for the briefest of moments, Steve is 20 years old again, watching a 22 year Bucky find him in a crowded room. Steve is 10 and sick at home in bed. He’d been sick for nearly two weeks and his Ma had already sent for the Priest. Bucky frowns down at him, worried but perhaps not for the correct reasons. He remembers a 12-year-old Bucky asking their mothers how long he had to stay at his bedside. He wanted to go outside and play.

The faint memory gives Steve the sense to talk. The memory of being a sick, needy, drain on society that kept his only childhood friend from playing outside gives him the sense to say the right thing. He hunches his shoulders and peers up through his lashes at Bucky. He watches him suck in the air, waiting.

“You need me, Buck?” Steve asks. The words are magic, unlocking something—someone from the husk that normally lives in the house with Steve.

He finds himself caged in by the embrace of Bucky, a painful show of force that came from being out of practice. But Steve is willing to take more than this to have Bucky. To make the pieces of their jagged puzzles fit together if only for a day. Bucky leads him to their bedroom, making sure to keep skin to skin contact the entire way. The short walk down their hallway creates a coating of sweat that covers Steve. He can feel his old constant childhood fever creeping on him, a beast that never dug its claws out. Bucky talks to him in docile, warm whispers, calling him baby, sweetheart, honey. All the words Steve isn’t allowed to use. It’s a meat hook to Steve’s gut when he realizes that Bucky is speaking into his right ear, the one that heard best when they were younger.

“Come here, honey.” Bucky leads him to the bed by his elbow. Releasing Steve to turn on the floor to ceiling lamp, a gaudy teal purchase that Bucky made at a flea market when they moved in. The light of the lamp floods the room in golden light, adding to the afternoon sun’s rays that peaked out from their orange curtains. Steve feels crudely exposed as Bucky uses the palm on his elbow to sit him down on the bed.  
He stands over Steve, a ghost of a smile on his face. Steve couldn’t begin to guess if the smile is coming or going, but he lets those concerns vanish as Bucky leans down to kiss him. The kiss is worth it, for now at least.

“You’re so tired, huh baby?” Bucky says. Steve nods. He is tired. He doesn’t think he’s gotten a decent night’s sleep since Bucky fell off that train. “I make you exhausted, don’t I?” Bucky asks. He takes off Steve’s shirt, then his own, giving him time to think about his answer, but from his confused expression Bucky can tell he doesn’t know what to say.  
He bends down, taking off Steve’s socks, one by one. “Oh, you don’t have to answer that. I know what I’m like.” He winks at Steve giving him an out and Steve coughs trying to clear his throat. He doesn’t know if he wants out.

Bucky is still on his knees when he reaches for the fly of Steve’s jeans. His eyes are storm cloud grey, and he doesn’t blink, doesn’t move his sniper trained fingers from Steve’s zipper when he speaks to him. “You know you saved me, sweetheart. You know it was all you, right?”

His body and mind are battling to react first because Steve is a sick fucking man who dreams of Bucky on his knees saying this to him. He was a sick little boy who dreamed of a version of this too and Bucky knows it. There hasn’t ever been a time that Steve didn’t want Bucky and now he has him, but it isn’t enough. Bucky knows that too.

He finally blinks, titling his chin up to grin at Steve as if he can read his mind. Bucky’s dimples have come out of hiding and strands of escape hair from his low bun frame his face. “Yeah, you fucking know,” he says to Steve with a chuckle. He breaks eye contact to unzip Steve's jeans. “Lift up, baby.”

Steve raises his ass, letting out an involuntary groan as his dick is freed. He feels disgusting, and he wants to feel more of it. Bucky is gracious and takes Steve’s underwear off first, the chilly air of the room pebbling his nipples and covering his skin in goosebumps. Steve reaches in between his legs, but Bucky stops him.

“No, let me,” Bucky says, voice back to a syrupy sweet cadence. “You always take such good care of me. Let me take care of you, honey.”

“Bucky,” Steve says. He doesn’t have time to say more as he watches the other man dip his head down and lick up the entirety of his cock. He licks Steve with a flat tongue, spit leaking out of his pink mouth lazily. It reminds Steve of the first time he had an Oreo and then learned that they were dairy free. Too sweet and too good to be true. Steve will pay for this later. He’ll be caught in a deep web search on what exactly this sex scene means and _what were the ingredients of an Oreo?_

That was a problem for future Steve to handle. Presently he focused on not cumming as Bucky used his luscious lips to suck a hickey on the head of Steve’s dick. He took Steve down his throat without the use of his hand, and he tried not to think about where Bucky learned that particular trick from. Steve instead petted Bucky’s scarred shoulder, rubbing at the knots that permanently lived there.

Bucky lets his mouth fall empty, licking lightly at Steve’s thighs. “Honey, you’re so worn out.” He makes shapeless designs with the tip of his tongue while Steve watches him, mesmerized. “Cum for me now, and then I’ll take care of you again.” Steve is pretty sure that Bucky is spelling out his own name with spit, kissing the end of the nickname each time he is done.

Steve opens his mouth to argue, to course correct their sinking ship one more desperate time, but Bucky isn’t having it. He wraps his fist along the bottom of Steve, the edge of his palm a tepid pressure on Steve’s balls, and fucks his face until his lips touch his thumb. Steve cums with a shout, a semblance of Bucky’s and the Lord’s name rolled into one. He angles his hips to deplete everything within him down into Bucky, who as usual endures. Bucky extracts himself from Steve with a little headshake, and a smug look on his well fucked face. Steve wishes for his dignity as he sits on their salmon pink bedspread, surrounded by a pool of his own cooling sperm. Bucky smacks a kiss to Steve's forehead, hand on his knee in mock concern as he examines his face.

“This doesn’t seem to be your day, my baby.” He quirks an eyebrow at Steve before knocking him on his back with a firm shove of his fist. Steve goes down easy, craving the rest and the next part. He hears Bucky peel out of his own jeans and the sounds of him uncapping lube, his dick stirring with interest at the image. His thighs are parted, and Steve bites the inside of his cheek until he feels tears in his eyes. He wonders which one of them is getting what they deserved.

Each time Bucky takes him this way, an event he could still count on one hand, pushing his fingers kindly into Steve, he cries. Steve is sure that Bucky does it on purpose, caressing him with his fingers, mouth, and honeyed dripped words, not listening to Steve when he cries out that he was ready to be fucked. To be taken roughly, in the same manner that Steve fucked him. This careless, tousled treatment of a body was never administered to him.

Steve whimpers as Bucky scissors three well-lubed fingers into him, tears flowing freely now. The room is broiling with Steve’s nauseating illness and Bucky isn’t helping, his face buried into Steve’s stomach, talking sadistic nonsense that’s getting Steve off.

“Don’t cry, babydoll,” Bucky says. “I’m right here. You saved me. I was so lost without you.” He rubs around Steve’s prostate, just there, but not quite. Steve brushes his fingertips in Bucky’s hair, wishing he could say, ‘I love you,’ wanting to say ‘I’m sorry’. I’m sorry this is where we are now, but I don’t know where it got messed up. I don’t know how to fix things.

Bucky kisses his stomach right above his belly button and slips his fingers out of Steve. He doesn’t waste time teasing him, using a simple twist of the wrist on himself to get rid of excessive lube, before adjoining them groin to groin. It’s Steve’s favorite part anytime they have sex, the terrifying thrill of getting caught in a thunderstorm that turns out to be an F-5 tornado. You won’t survive the destruction, but there was something pure in being killed by the natural phenomenon.

“Hush.” Bucky laps Steve’s tears up, obtaining them for himself. He thrust inside of him, and the ebb and flow of the fire that Bucky started is now out of control. “There’s only you and me, sweetheart. That’s it.” Steve isn’t sure if the comment is supposed to be romantic or depressing. Bucky arches his pelvis into Steve while holding one of his legs up high and apart. He feels studied, and he meets Bucky’s eyes who continues to talk at him in a hypotonic tone.

“Do you like that it was you that saved me, Stevie?” his words make his hips jerk, not all together unaffected, but it’s still nothing compared to the way Steve acts. His legs slip down, moving to pin Bucky sides with his knees, each word a punch to the face. “I was so fucked up without you, baby. I needed.” Bucky raises Steve’s ass up, placing him at a better angle, better to attack him. “You.” He thrust into Steve, hitting areas that haven’t been touched yet by anyone. “I needed you to unfuck me, Stevie baby.”

Steve doesn’t know if he talks back, other than whispering yes, yes and crying out fresh tears for Bucky to drink up. He knows he cums a second time, but this does not liberate him. Instead Bucky uses his teeth and mouth, leaving sloppy sugary kisses on his face before flipping him over. “That’s, my Stevie. That’s my guy,” he whispers in his ear that works well. Steve is in a daze as he nods into the sheets, inhaling sharply when Bucky climbs inside once more. He’s fucking into him harder now, forceful little jerks while rubbing the flat of his palm down Steve’s back.

“You want to give me everything, sweetheart? You want to make me that sweet Bucky for you again, huh baby?” Bucky wraps his fingers around Steve’s waist, fucking the other man back onto him, pulling high animalistic wails out of him. “Does that get you off? I need to know, Steve.” Bucky snaps his hips against the bounce of Steve’s ass. “I need you, Stevie baby, but is he the one that gets you off?”

Steve clenches his ass around Bucky, letting himself be moved around, feeling ill with the lust that drips out of him. He’s panting a revolting wet moan, sounding like a wounded animal that needs to be taken out back and put out his misery. Bucky gets his arm underneath him, and Steve thinks he will pass out from the heat that bubbles them in.

“I was all alone,” Bucky says. “I was all alone, but then you saved me.” He pets Steve’s sweaty chest, murmuring “Oh, Sweetie.” It’s enough to finish Steve off, and send Bucky over the tipping point careening him into some far off abyss that Steve has no access to.

_____________________________________________________________

**Author's Note:**

> I hope someone enjoyed this. I truly appreciate my discord writing group who let me ramble on about The Old Men and the two people who beta read this, their AO3 handles are thoughtsappear and sultrybutdamaged. Thoughtsappear is currently beta reading for charity and she will whip your stories into shape. Find me on tumblr or twitter under the same AO3 handle if you want. Let me know if I should tag something else.


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